A Wonderful Partnership
by Tennyo Ch'ang-O
Summary: Taken over from another author. What if Dr Brennan and Special Agent Booth led a secret life no one knew about? What if, because of it, Brennan learns to be more sociable? What if what everyone they worked with thought was a lie? AU with Booth and Bones married.
1. Author's Note and Disclaimer

**Author's Note:** I have taken over writing this fan fiction from the writer, who shall remain unnamed as per their wishes, as they want nothing more to do with it. Before I post any of the chapters that were previously published, I will be rewriting them to my own style as well as adding more scenes from the television series.

**Disclaimer: ** I do not own the telelvision series Bones, which is official property of 20th Century Fox Entertainment. Nor do I own the original story lines. (I am only writing this once.)


	2. Pilot Part 1

It was early afternoon at the Dulles International Airport in Washington, D.C.

A pretty woman dressed in pink and purple rushed to the Arrivals information boards looking for the gate of her best friend's flight arrival.

"I'm late," she muttered to herself over and over.

The woman was Angela Montenegro, an employee of the Jeffersonian Institution.

Just as she stopped in front of the information boards, they started to malfunction, making her frustrated; even more so than the fact that she was late.

Angela frantically looked around for help asking, "Uh, did anybody meet the flight from Guatemala? Aviateca Airlines? What gate?" Before long she gave up and muttered to herself again. "Yeah, right. I'm late."

Seeing the customer service desk, she walked up to it.

"Excuse me, uh, you have a computer glitch at the arrivals board." Yet she gets no response. That just makes her even madder. "Hello! Sir, excuse me, yoo-hoo…"

The man there had the gull to hold up his finger to her. "Great." Doing the only thing she knows will get this ignorant man's attention, the woman rips open her shirt revealing a rather sexy lacy bustier. Which, of course, does get the man's attention.

"Yeah. Hi. The flight from Guatemala?"

Behind her, a woman said, "Tell me you tried 'Excuse me' first.".

Angela recognizes that voice in an instant and runs to engulf her in a hug while saying, "Sweetie! Yes, I did. Welcome home."

'Sweetie' was Dr Temperance Brennan, a forensic anthropologist, also employed at the Jeffersonian Institution.

The two women hugged for a little longer before they started walking towards the exit with Angela firing off questions, "Are you exhausted? Was Guatemala awful? Was it horribly backwards?"

Brennan smiles and jokes, "And yet I was never reduced to flashing my boobs for information."

Angela went right along with it. "Flash them for any fun reasons?"

Of course, Brennan being an extremely literal person replied, "I was literally, neck deep in a mass grave, not romantic."

Angela – thinking that Brennan went on her latest adventure due to her break-up with her ex-boyfriend – says, "You know, diving in a pit of cadavers is no way to handle a messy break up."

Brennan feels a twinge of guilt at deceiving her best friend like this but she lies, "Angela, nothing Pete and I ever did was messy." All the while Brennan can feel the ring around her necklace pressing against her chest.

Angela just laughs, "Then you were not doing the right things."

Brennan didn't know what that meant, however she did notice someone following them. So she suddenly stops and drops her bag to confront the person. She walked right up to him and asked, "Sir, why are you following us?"

The unknown man grabbed her arm trying to bring her in, but Brennan knowing martial arts and from other training, moved faster than the man and brought him down to the ground with a few arm swings and knee kicks.

Angela started yelling, "Attack! Security! Hello! Who runs this airport?" She then started hitting the man with her own purse while shouting, "Kick his ass, sweetie!"

As all of this is happening the police arrived and raised their weapons. One officer shouted out, "Police! Ma'am, step back now!"

Brennan looks at the cops like they're crazy, "He attacked me!"

The man on the ground yelled to her, "I'm Homeland Security!"

Angela seeing the whole mess they were now in says, "Oh, little misunderstanding here."

Since the police still had their guns pointing at Brennan, she raised her arms up and stated with authority, "You can put away your guns."

The officers began to lower their weapons, but the Homeland Security agent says while he starts to get up, "What is she in charge now? No. I'll tell you when you can lower your weapons."

The police raised their weapons one more time while the agent ordered Brennan to give her bag.

Brennan says annoyed, "Oh, is that what this is about?" She reached down for her bag and hands it over to the agent.

He opened her bag, only to find a human skull nestled within it.

Brennan – already knowing what is in there – casually said, "Boo."

The agent dropped the bag in shock as one officer walked up behind Brennan to escort her, with Angela smiling all the while.

* * *

About an hour later, Brennan was still trying to explain to the agent why a skull was in her possession. "I am Dr Temperance Brennan. I've been in Guatemala for two months identifying victims of genocide." She gestures the skull that is sitting on the table in front of her, "Including him."

The agent tries to reason with Brennan, trying to get her to "say" something she shouldn't, "Most people in this situation, what they do is, they sweat it."

Brennan was still unfazed – and actually bored. She really wanted to get home. "Guatemala. Genocide. How are you scary after that?"

The agent just nodded his head and says, "You know who doesn't sweat it?"

A security guard behind him said, "Sociopaths."

Brennan took offense to that, "I am not a sociopath, I'm an anthropologist at the Jeffersonian."

The agent then added, "Who works for the FBI. Which I'd maybe believe if you had an ID that did more than allowed you access to the cafeteria."

While the agent was saying this, a man in a suit walked into the room carrying a book under his arm.

Ignoring the intruder, the agent continues, "You were illegally transporting human remains ma'am and you assaulted a Homeland Security agent."

Brennan reached out to somewhat show her not-whole-hearted remorse says, "Look, I'm sorry if I embarrassed you in front of your friends, but next time you should identify yourself before attacking me." She then turns to the man in the suit, having felt his presence immediately, but knew she had to keep up the charade, she rudely asked, "What are you doing here?"

The man stepped forward, showing his badge, and introduced himself. "FBI, Special Agent Seeley Booth, Major Crime Investigation, D.C. Bones identifies bodies for us."

Brennan, loving that little nickname he gave her but wouldn't admit it in company, said to him, "Don't call me Bones." She then turned to the Homeland Security agent, adding, "And I do more than identify."

"She also writes books." Booth held up the book before sliding it across the table to the agent.

The agent looked down at the book and flipped it to look at the photograph on the back. He examined it for a few seconds. All the while Brennan is wondering why Booth was there to "bail" her out.

The agent finally speaks. "Fine. She's all yours."

Booth trying to get out of there as fast as possible says, "Great. Let's grab your skull and let's vamoose."

Brennan, not believing what had just transpired, jumped up from her seat and exclaimed, indignantly, "What! That's it? She's all yours? Why did you stop me?"

Booth, trying his hardest to get her off the topic, reached for the bag the agent had placed on the table and asked, "Why does it matter? You're free to go. Let's just grab your bags, click, click, clang, clang."

Understanding dawned on her. "You set me up." Turning to the agent she states, "You got a hold for questioning request from the FBI didn't you?"

The agent just looked at Booth with something akin to sympathy. Brennan turned towards Booth not believing what he'd risked. And Booth knew that they were so going to have another spat about this.

The agent looks back to Brennan and says, "I love this book." And he handed it back to her.

Brennan, now extremely annoyed, snatchedthe book and then picked up the skull. She walked briskly past Booth telling him, "Come on."

* * *

A short while later Brennan is seated next to him in his SUV.

"That's the best you can do?" she asked, incredulously.

Booth, pretending he didn't know what she was talking about, replied, "What?"

Knowing what he was doing, goes along with it because she wants to have just a little fun with him says, "Getting Homeland Security to snatch me so that you can stage a fake rescue."

Booth looked lovingly toward Brennan says, "Well, at least I picked you up at the airport huh?"

He then sent her that smile he knew she couldn't resist.

She only smiled at him slightly, "You shouldn't have done that."

Booth sighed, "Hey, come on. I went through the appropriate channels but your assistant there, he stonewalled me!"

Brennan grabbed the ring hanging around her neck and played with it as she said, "Yeah, well after the last case I told Zach to never, ever to put you through. He's a good assistant. And you know why I had to tell him that."

Booth looked at his wife and smiled at her. "I know, and I love you too."

Brennan, not liking that her husband sort of won this one, said, "You can let me out anywhere along here."

Booth knowing that he should just get straight to the reason why he almost blew their secret, started, "Alright, listen. A decomposed corpse was found this morning at Arlington National Cemetery down..."

Temperance not really wanting to hear the reasons why, replied, "Arlington National Cemetery is full of decomposed corpses, it's a cemetery."

Booth tried to clarify it for her, "Yeah, but this one is your type of corpse. It wasn't in a casket."

Brennan seeing what he was saying – she had a case with him – told him, "If you drive one more block, I'm screaming 'kidnap' out the window. I just got back from looking at hundreds of dead people Booth. Let's just go home."

Booth would love to do that exact thing and a few other things, but he just couldn't stop in the middle of a case to do what he wanted; what with a murderer on the loose. "I know that, and I would love to go home too, but Bones…"

Brennan didn't want to hear it. "Pull over."

Booth not really wanting to argue while driving does just that. Unfortunately his beautiful, but stubborn wife, exited the SUV and started walking away, saying, "I'm going home. Either you come with me or I'll see you later tonight."

Booth, wanting to get this over with so he could be with his wife tonight, said exasperatingly while following her, "Great! Could we… Look, could we just skip this part?"

Brennan couldn't believe that he thought he would win this one too. "I find you very condescending right now."

Booth didn't want to but he couldn't resist saying, "Me! I'm condescending. I'm not the one who's got to mention that she's got a Doctorate every five minutes."

Brennan turned toward, walking backwards and said, "I _am_ the one with the Doctorate."

Booth did not want to fight about this, "Yeah, well you know what? I'm the one with the badge and the gun huh. You know, you're not the only forensic anthropologist in town." Even though he knew that was a lie.

Brennan just laughed at her husband's words, "Yes I am. The next nearest is in Montreal. _Parlez-vous francais?_"

Booth knew he was going to have to compromise in some way gave up this offer. "What's it going to take?" he asked.

Brennan – happy to see that her husband was finally giving in – replied, "Full participation in the case."

"Fine," He immediately agree, though he already hates the risk involved.

Brennan clarified for her husband so he wouldn't try to work his way out of the deal, "Not just lab work. Everything."

Booth knew what his wife meant and was becoming frustrated that they weren't already at the cemetery. "What? Do you want me to spit in my hand? We're Scully and Mulder."

Brennan had no clue what her husband was talking about. "I don't know what that means."

Chuckling inside at his wife's lack of pop culture knowledge, Booth replied, "It's an olive branch, just get back in the car."

Brennan smiles at him and starts to walk toward the car holding hands with her husband. "Thank you, Booth."

Just before she could climb into the car, Booth spun her around and placed his hands by the side of her head. "Anything for you Bones."

She was just starting to say, "Don't call me Bones," when finally her husband kissed her.

All of their pent up frustration and passion went into that kiss. Brennan dropped her bag to lace her fingers through Booth's hair, pulling him even closer. Before long, Booth had her pinned against the door wanting to do a lot more to his wife than just kiss her. Without even thinking about it, Brennan wrapped her legs around his waist, feeling his evident arousal. She moaned inside his mouth, which snapped Booth, unfortunately, out of their public display.

He rested his forehead against her own, panting heavily. "Bones, we need to get to the cemetery."

Brennan pouted slightly. "You started it. I've been gone for two months, Booth…"

Booth said under his breath, "Don't I know it."

However she continued as if he hadn't said anything, "I've missed you and I want to show you how much I've missed you." She provocatively circled her hips, causing friction against his arousal. Involuntarily Booth bucked forward.

"That is not nice babe," he said breathlessly. God, what he would do for a private room right about now.

Brennan smiled wickedly at him, "Well, we could go home like I said we should." She then leaned forward to whisper into her husband's ear, like she had a secret, "I can't tell you how aroused I am just by being around you."

Booth leaned his fore head against the SUV's door, reciting the saints in his head. "Babe, we need to go to the cemetery."

He heard his wife sigh in frustration.

"But I promise you, we will continue this when we get home."

With that he gave her one more searing kiss and gently brought her feet back down to the ground.

Brennan watched her husband walking around the SUV, with a little difficulty trying to hide his arousal and smirked as she grabbed her forgotten bag and opened the door.

Angela would be so proud.

* * *

As they pulled up to the cemetery, Booth regained control over his body – which was rather easy since on the drive there his wife told him what she had witnessed while in Guatemala – and they were both in work mode and their façade was up once again; an annoyed anthropologist working for an even more annoyed FBI Agent.

Brennan asked, "What's the context of the find?"

Booth hurried to catch up with his wife as they walked down to the pond. "Routine landscaping dropped a load in the local pond, one of the workmen thought he saw something."

Brenna walked up to the pond to find her assistant Zach Addy already there getting ready for her.

"Hi, Zach," she greeted him.

Zach smiles at his mentor, "This eco-warrior look works for you."

Brennan smiled at him. "Thanks."

Zach continues to compliment her. "Very action oriented."

Brennan – almost forgetting that this is supposed to be her second time working with Booth – states, "Agent Booth, you remember my assistant Zach Addy?"

Booth, not really having to pretend his feelings for his wife's assistant, replied, "Oh yeah…"

Zach looked to Brennan, asking about her trip. "How was Guatemala? Dig up lots of massacred victims? Learn a thing or two about machete strikes?"

Brenna, finding that she doesn't like to mix work with, well, technically that was work as well but she really wants to get home, told her assistant, "I need water samples and temperature readings from the pond."

Zach ready to find approval from his professor replied, "Right away Dr. Brennan."

Booth once again informed his wife of what he thinks of Zach, "He's got no sense of discretion that kid. Typical Squint."

Brennan could hear Booth's sexual frustration and his overall frustration at her socially inept assistant in his voice, and tried to placate him a little, "Booth…"

Booth sighs quietly. "I know, I know. It's just when cops get stuck, we bring in people like you. You know? Squints. You know, you squint at things."

Brennan just rolls her eyes and jokes, "Oh, you mean people with very high IQ's and basic reasoning skills."

Booth smiled candidly at his wife. "Yeah."

She handed off her bag to him as they get ready to go in the boat.

* * *

Booth slowly lowered the small underwater camera into the pond.

Brennan couldn't help her curiosity and asked, "What exactly am I supposed to be squinting at?"

Booth smirks at her and says, "Oh you know, it's like pornography, you'll know it when you see it." He then caresses her hip slightly.

Brennan smiles gently but the smile soon goes away as she sees the skeleton. "Yeah, okay. This is a crime scene."

~BONES~

Brennan looked at the remains that had been taken out of the pond while Zach took pictures of them.

"Remains are wrapped in four-milled, flat poly-construction sheeting," she said aloud.

Zach adds his own observations, "PVC coated chicken wire."

Brennan makes note of that and continued, "Weighted. That's why the body didn't surface during decomposition. The skeleton is complete but the skull is in fragments."

Booth walked up to the group. He really, really, really just wants to go home with his wife and… "What can you tell me?" he asked.

Brennan was frustrated at herself. She had nothing which meant she wouldn't be able to go home yet. She sighed quietly. "Not much. She was a young woman, probably between eighteen and twenty-two, approximately five foot three; race unknown; delicate features."

Booth almost whined – the operative word being almost – and said, incredulously, "That's all?"

Brennan smiles gently at her husband's behaviour and offered him, "Tennis player."

Still is amazed at what his wife could do, Booth asked, "How do you get a pretty tennis player out of all that yuck?"

Zach, unaware of the real meaning behind all of their words, answered, "Epiphyses fusion gives age, pelvic bone shape gives sex."

Brennan pointed out, "Bursitis in the shoulder. In somebody this young it must be an athletic injury."

Wanting to get this done with tonight, Booth asked, "When did she die?"

Brennan, knowing Booth knows that she doesn't like to guess, replies, "Ehhhh…..

Booth rolled his eyes inside and mocks, "Ehhhh… What does that even mean?"

"It means wait until our bug and slime guy takes a look," Zach chimed in.

Brennan points out another observation. "No clothing."

Booth didn't like the sound of that. "You know, in my line of work, no clothes usually means a sex crime," he said.

Brennan tries to reason with her husband, "In my line of work, it could also mean the victim favoured natural fibres."

Zach, still taking pictures, tells Booth, "Your suit, for example, will outlast your bones by decades."

Brennan finally feeling satisfied with the work accomplished tells Zach, "Collect silt, 3 meters radius, to a depth of 10 cm." She turns to her husband and smiled sadly at him knowing she wouldn't be going home tonight, "Your FBI forensics team can take the plastic and the chicken wire, we'll take the rest."

Booth sighed. Great, now he'd have to wait even longer to be with his wife.

* * *

The Medico-Legal laboratory of the Jeffersonian Institute was brightly lit from the skylights as usual. Scientists of different disciplines were hard at work on different projects.

Dr Jack Hodgins, the Jeffersonian's resident botanist, entomologist and mineralogist, was briefing the forensic team, consisting of Brennan, Angela, Zach and himself, as they stepped onto the forensic platform where the human remains had been placed for the preliminary examination.

"The pond is not only warm and teaming with microbes which accelerated decomposition, but it houses black carp and koi that fed on the body."

"Can I, as the only normal person in this room, say, 'ew'?" Angela asked in disgust.

"I got three larval stages of _Trichoprera_, _Chironomidae_…" Hodgins continued

"As we cut to the chase," Brennan interrupted. She wanted to get the preliminary findings over with as soon as possible so she could get back to her husband.

"The body was in the pond one winter and two summers," Hodgins summarised.

"The spring before last!" Brennan deducted.

"You really think I'm lusty?" Hodgins asked, surprising Brennan.

At Brennan's confused expression, Angela clarified, "The book."

"No! No, you're not in the book," Brennan protested.

"Sure he is," Zach cut in. "We all are."

"No, none of you are in the book," Brennan further protested. "Those are fictitious characters based on— "

"I also found some bone fragments in the silt," Hodgins cut in.

"We're out of the book, we're back in real life," Angela stated.

"I guess _Rana Temporaria_," Hodgins said.

"Frog bones?" Brennan asked, not really surprised. The victim had been found in a pond, after all.

"Also some tiny gold links as from a fine chain."

"Point of clarification, I'm not a virgin," Zach cut in. "Nowhere near, in fact."

Brennan sighed in disbelief.

Angela couldn't resist putting in another two cents about one of the characters in Brennan's book. "Who you captured perfectly is Booth. Buttoned down with buckets of sexual confidence which I, for one, would love to tap."

"It's not right to discuss tapping asses in front of the soaker," Zach commented.

Deciding to stop this character analysis of her book before it went too far, Brennan said, "I can't bounce back and forth between my book and real life. Since we're stuck with real life, let's just forget about the book."

She was most concerned about Angela's comments about the character she'd based on her husband. Booth is a very fine specimen of a male, but Brennan didn't feel entirely comfortable with the thought of her best friend lusting after her husband.

"I haven't analysed whatever it was the victim was holding in her hand," Hodgins commented, as looked at one of the monitors that stood beside the examination table. "Looks like cellulose."

"Paper?" Angela asked.

"Possibly," Hodgins replied.

"I found microscopic grit embedding in the skull fragments. I need you to identify those." She turned to Zach and told him, "Remove the remaining tissue. I'll debride the skull fragments myself, reassemble it so Angela can put a face on it."

"Good. I prefer holographs. They don't stink," Angela said, happy that she wasn't going to be needed during any of the more hands-on processes.

Before stepping down from the platform to go to her office, Brennan once again turned to Zach. "Zach, I don't like those terms for human remains – 'soaker', 'crisper critter'…"

"I know, Dr Brennan," Zach replied, completely chastised.

* * *

Brennan looks down at all the skull fragments and began the process.

Everything faded away.

Before long Brennan found herself waking up to the smell of coffee. She looeds around and decides that she needs to go home to sleep for just a while. Maybe her husband will show up…

* * *

Cullen couldn't believe what he'd just heard. "So, you guaranteed a squint a field role in an active murder investigation."

Booth knew his boss didn't like this at all. "Yes sir."

Cullen sighed, "The one that wrote the book."

Booth nodded one more time, "Yes sir."

Cullen sighed again. "I thought you said that she wouldn't work with you anymore."

Booth looked down at his lap, "Well, the last case we worked she provided a description of the murder weapon and the murderer but I didn't give her much credence."

Cullen, eager to hear Booth's first impression of the squint, asked, "Why not?"

Booth couldn't give his boss the real reason behind that first case, the real argument, so he lied to his boss. "Because she did it by looking at the victim's autopsy x-rays."

Cullen snorted. Now that he could believe. "Well I wouldn't give it much credence either."

Booth, feeling proud of what his wife was able to do, couldn't help but boast about her. "Turns out she was right on both plus the pond victim, Brennan gives me the victim's age, sex and favourite sport."

Cullen couldn't believe it. "Which is?"

Booth smirked slightly at the memory, "Tennis."

Cullen definitely couldn't believe it now. "She's good."

Booth, saying so much more than what his boss thought, said, "Oh, she's amazing. If the only way I can get her back to my side is to bring her out in the field, I'm willing."

Cullen thought it over for a moment, "Fine. She's on you. Take a squint out in the field, she's your responsibility."

Booth smiled inwardly as he said, "Thank you sir."

* * *

Booth walked into their apartment and threw his keys on the counter. Seeing his wife's bag on the floor, he smiled widely. He walked quietly into their room to find his wife sleeping in only her camisole and her sexy lacy underwear. He walks up to the bed and gently climbed on top of her until his face is mere centimetres away from hers. He gently kissed her lips.

Brennan started to wake up to the most wonderful wake-up call in two months. Her husband's lips softly kissed hers, and she responded immediately. Without even opening her eyes, she wrapped her arms around his neck to bring him closer, and wraps her legs around his waist.

Booth loved that his wife responded so eagerly to him and they were back to where they were earlier the day before up against his SUV.

Brennan skilfully discarded her husband's tie, shirt, suit jacket and his belt all within a couple of minutes. She started to unbutton his pants as he moves away from her lips to his favourite, and her favourite, spot on her neck.

He sucked gently there, eliciting moans from his beautiful wife. The pants – along with his boxers – are finally taken off and somewhere along the way Booth took off Brennan's camisole and undergarments.

Booth stared down at his wife for a moment in awe at her beauty. He still can't believe that she's his wife. "God, I love you babe."

Brennan smiled softly at him, "I love you too." With that, he places a passionate kiss on her lips and begans the ride to a blissful end.

After only a few minutes Booth could already feel his wife's climax impending. He felt her walls starting to contract, and it was like heaven for him. Unfortunately, their phone chose to ring at the moment.

Even while feeling the best she'd felt in a while, Brennan could see it was the lab calling. Panting out, "Booth."

Her husband already knew what was going to happen, and he'll have none of it. So he lifted her hips up slightly and rocked forward, bringing her even closer to the edge. She moaned loudly, but still managed to get out, "The lab is calling."

Booth just wanted to shoot that damn phone, but instead he dared her in a sexy, husky voice, "Answer it then."

Brennan always up for a challenge – and hopefully she wouldn't lose at this one – reached for the phone while still making love with her husband. She unintentionally snaps, "What?" in a breathless voice as her husband brings her even closer.

Angela takes the phone away from her ear and looks at it, unsure of what she can hear in the background – but she's pretty sure it sounds like her best friend is… "Sweetie, I made the facial reconstruction."

Brennan holds back a moan, "Thanks, I'll see you soon." But before she could hang up Angela was sure she heard a male grunt of pleasure. And she just smirks.

However Brennan was completely unaware of that as finally, after two months of being away from her husband, they defy the laws of physics. And become one. Again.

* * *

Booth made sure that he came into the lab first. They didn't want the team to think that they were together when they were, in fact, together. Booth couldn't wipe that stupid 'I just made love to my wife' smile off of his face. And then he looked up at Angela's painting. "This is interesting, Angela."

Brennan enters the room, try conceal her own 'after sex glow' from her team, especially Angella. "Good morning. Does Booth know how this works?"

Angela explains what is about to be seen. "This computer program, which I designed, patent pending, accepts a full array of digital input, processes it and then projects it as a three dimensional holographic image."

Booth just looked at the team, "Okay."

Brennan trying to get into Dr. Temperance Brennan mode asked, "You get that?"

Booth could see that she was still trying to get her ground from their love making (which boosted his own ego, of course he would never say that out loud). So he tried to help her out, "Yeah, that and the patent pending part."

Angela further explained to Booth, "Brennan reassembled the skull and applied tissue markers."

Brennan walked up to the Angelator with everyone else and said, "Her skull was badly damaged, but racial indicators, cheekbone dimensions, nasal arch, occipital measurements suggest African American."

Angela put in all of the details and stated, as an image of a coloured woman appeared on the projector, "And…. We have our victim."

It was so life-like. Booth brings his fingers through the hologram, amazed. "Whoa. Have to admit, that's pretty cool."

Brennan gently brings down her husband's arm, trying to put the pieces together, without even thinking about it. "Ange, rerun the program substituting Caucasian values."

Angela does as requested and a new image is projected. Brennan couldn't put her finger on it but the victim seemed familiar. "Does she look familiar to anyone?"

Booth thought he recognized her, but still said, "No."

Brennan couldn't shake the feeling though and told Angela, "Split the difference, mixed race."

"Lenny Kravitz or Vanessa Williams?" Angela asked, wanting to know how mixed.

Brennan being, of course, naïve to pop culture, said, "I don't know what that means." Angela makes the changes and Booth can't believe what he sees.

Brennan said, "Angela, reduce tissue depth over the cheekbones to the jaw line." Angela makes the changes. "Does anyone recognize her?"

Zach shook his head, "Not me."

Angela wasn't so sure that she didn't recognise the victim. "Wait, is that who I think it is?"

Then Zach started to make the connections. "The girl who had the affair with the Senator?"

Booth couldn't believe it. "Her name is Cleo Louise Eller. Only daughter to Ted and Sharon Eller. Last seen approximately 9pm, April 6, 2003 leaving the Cardio Deluxe Gym on K Street, she didn't even make it to her car. "

Brennan knew what this case meant to Booth, but she couldn't comfort him in front of everyone. So she said the only thing she could. "Pretty good memory."

Booth looks at his wife and sends her a silent message of pain, "Yeah well, it's my job to find her."

Hodgins – unbeknownst to the silent conversation going on – says, "Well, in that case, congratulations on your success."

Booth breaks eye contact with his wife and says, "This isn't exactly the way I wanted it to end."

* * *

Booth didn''t like that the case had turned out the way it had. "Cleo Eller is not just some missing girl," he stated.

Without thought of how Booth felt, Hodgins said "Yeah, she's a senate intern who was boinking Senator Alan Bethlehem."

This angered Booth a little. He said, "I was secondary in the investigation to the disappearance of that girl and we couldn't confirm that." Booth turned to his wife and asked, "How did you recognize her before she even had her own face?"

Brennan wanted to reach out and comfort Booth, but with everyone around she had to settle with the facts. "I recognized the underlying architecture of her features, the rest is just window dressing."

Not directly asking anyone, Zach asked, "I'm not an expert but, shouldn't he be happier?"

Booth answered, "Oh no, believe me, I'm happy."

Hodgins tried to explain it to Zach a little bit more, "He's not happy because Senator Bethlehem chairs the Senate Committee overseeing the FBI."

"You seem happy to me," Angela stated.

Booth looked at all three squints and said, seriously, "I need this kept quiet."

"Ha! Cover up!" Hodgins cried, looked like a kid in a candy store.

Booth did not want to deal with Hodgins' ramblings, so he started walking away with Brennan right behind him. But he couldn't help yelling back, "Paranoid conspiracy theory."

Hodgins yelled back, "Is it paranoia that Monica Lewinsky was a KGB trained sex agent mole?"

Brennan ran up to walk in pace with her husband, "So what do you do first, confront the Senator?"

Booth sighed. His wife was not going to like what he was going to say. "Listen, Bones, I know…"

"Booth, don't call me Bones," Brennan interrupted.

Booth smiled lightly and continued, hoping for the best, "I know we talked about you coming out in the field and all…"

Brennan couldn't believe what her husband was saying, "Ugh, you rat bastard!" She also slapped his arm for emphasis.

Booth knew she was going to be pissed, and pissed she was. Great. "A case this big and the Director is going to create a special investigation and if I line all my ducks up in a row I could maybe… maybe I can head it up."

Brennan looked at her husband confused, "I don't know what that means but I think I could be a duck. "

Booth could have laughed at that cute face she was making, but opted out on that one since it would probably mean bodily harm for him. "You're not a duck ok! On this one we stick to the book. Cops on the street, squints in the lab."

Brennan heard him say "on this one" but she didn't care. She was not going to back down now. "Well in that case, the Jeffersonian will be issuing a press release identifying the girl in the pond."

Booth knew what she was playing at and he didn't like it. "You do that, I'm a dead duck. What are you trying to do?"

Brennan smirked, "Blackmail you."

Booth was half proud and half mad at what his wife was doing, "Blackmail a Federal Agent?"

Brennan's smirk turned into a full on smile, "Yes."

Booth looked directly into his wife's eyes and couldn't help the smirk that came across his face, "I don't like it."

Brennan's smiled into a more seductive one, "I'm fairly certain you're not supposed to."

Booth sighed, "Fine. You're in. Just remember, babe, you are so going to pay for this later."

Brennan wanted to grab onto his arm and rest her head against his shoulder, but settled for, "I'm looking forward to that."

* * *

A short while later they were both seated in the Deputy Director's office.

"You're certain it's Cleo Eller?" Cullen asked.

"The profile is dead-on," Brennan replied. "Age, race, height…"

"Plus the timeline fits," Booth added. "And Cleo Eller did play tennis in college."

Cullen sighed in resignation. "Talk to me about the senator," he said.

"Cleo Eller, the victim," Booth started, as he gave the deputy director a black and white photograph from a filed he'd been holding. "Worked for Senator Bethlehem."

The photograph was a publicity shot of a smartly dressed white man with light hair and eyes.

"It was reported that they were involved, sexually," Brennan

"We couldn't confirm that."

"Well, Bethlehem's a hound," Cullen commented. "Everyone knows that."

Booth handed Cullen another black and white photograph of a man, also with light hair and eyes. "Ken Thompson, her boyfriend."

"Thompson is still Bethlehem's aide. He keeps Bethlehem's calendar," Cullen said. "No way the senator has an affair that Thompson doesn't know about. No sexual relationship, no motive." He paused, before asking, "What about the nutcase?"

"Oliver Laurier," Booth replied, giving Cullen the last photo. It was of a man with dark hair and light eyes.

"You like him for this?"

"He's a stalker."

"What's your first move?"

"I'd like to inform the Ellers that we've found their daughter."

"It's better that we keep this quiet," Cullen said. "It's been…what? Two years? What's another few days."

"With all due respect, sir, I've come to know the family pretty well, especially the major," Booth put in. "And two years is a hell of a long time in limbo."

Knowing how important this was to her husband, Brennan said, "I'll have details of cause of death by this afternoon."

"That's where we'll get started," Booth said, wrapping up the meeting.

* * *

About three hours later, after retrieving the file that contained notes of the findings from the lab, Brennan and Booth were now driving to Cleo's parents' house.

"Hodgins identified the particulates embedded in Cleo Eller's skull as rolled steel most likely from a sledge-type hammer also there's concrete and diatomaceous earth."

She held out a clear plastic vial filled with a grainy white powder to Booth.

Booth looked at the bottle briefly and asked as he took it from her, "What's that?"

Brennan explained, "Looks like that. It's made up of prehistoric sea creatures, it's used as an insecticide, filtering agent, cleaning abrasive, ceramics… It's very common."

Booth smiled as he glanced again at the vial, happy to be working with his wife again.

"Diatomaceous earth. Common or not, it's a clue," he said as he handed Brennan back the vial.

* * *

"Are you positive it's our Cleo?" Major Eller asked.

Brennan and Booth were sat across from the Eller's in the Eller's sitting room.

Brennan started to reply before Booth interrupted her. "We established twenty-two matching points of comparison…"

"Yes, we're certain." He glanced his wife.

"Did he do it? The senator." He leaned forward. "One military man to another."

"Major Eller, we can't discuss the investigation."

"Can you at least tell us if our daughter suffered?" Mrs Eller asked.

Once again Brennan started to reply before Booth cut in. "Given the state of her skull…"

"Cleo never saw it coming." Once again, he glanced at his wife, hoping she wouldn't dispute him.

The Ellers were comforted by this.

"Thank you," the major said.

"Mrs Eller, could you tell us what Cleo wore around her neck?" Brennan asked, knowing that it would be pertinent to the case.

"Her father's Bronze Star," Mrs Eller replied as she pointed to a photograph on a side cupboard of the Major in full military regalia shaking hands with a former President. "Ted won it in the first Gulf War and…he gave it to her for luck."

Mrs Eller began to weep for their daughter who would never come home. The major drew her into his arms. She buried her head against her husband's shoulder, drawing comfort from his presence.

* * *

Brennan thought about what Booth said as they walked back to the SUV. "Those people deserved the truth."

Booth knew his wife's policy is to tell them the facts no matter what, but… "Babe, their daughter was murdered. They deserve the kindness of a lie."

Disagreeing with this, Brennan tried to reason with him. "There'll be an inquest report."

Booth looked at her and smiled softly, "Which they won't read because they don't want to, especially because toward the end, Cleo and her parents weren't even speaking."

Brennan looked at him in disbelief again at how he got this information, "They told you that?"

Booth almost forgot where they were, for he was about to come up to her and swipe the piece of hair out of her face. Thankfully he caught himself and just said, "You know, getting information out of live people is a lot different than getting information out of a pile of bones. You have to offer up something of yourself first."

Brennan – ever fascinated with her husband's past – says, "What exactly did you do in the military? What did they teach you?"

Booth chuckles, "See? See what you did right there Bones? You asked a personal question without offering anything personal in return and since I'm not a skeleton, you gotta offer up something first babe."

Without even thinking about it Brennan steps up to Booth and gently straightens his tie, "I am one of the luckiest women on this planet because I am married to a wonderfully kind gentleman."

Booth smiles lovingly down at his wife, "Oh really, would I happen to know this wonderfully kind gentleman?"

Brennan smiled sweetly at him and patted his chest lightly, "I expect an answer to my question Booth. Tonight. In bed."

Booth barked out a laugh shaking his head slightly. His wife was going to be the death of him. And thank god for that.

* * *

**_I decided to write this episode as a two parter, and will probably do the same for the rest. _****_Sorry it took me so long, to upload this. I've got something else going on right now. I'm entering a competition on Movellas. It's a One Direction fan fiction competition. I'm not a big fan of the band, but I thought it would be a good excuse to get something down._**


	3. Pilot Part 2 Preview

After having his ass handed to him on a plate by his boss, both Booth and Brennan left his office together and Booth immediately asked his wife, "You okay?"

Brennan couldn't believe what she just did. "Don't be nice to me after I got you in trouble."

Booth smiled warmly at her. Yeah he was mad, but it wasn't the end of the world. "Your heart was in the right place."

Brennan shook her head, still kicking herself for what just happened; figuratively, of course. "No, I'm not a heart person; you're a heart person. I'm a brain person. You vouched for me."

He really didn't want to talk with his wife right outside his boss' office. "Forget it…"

Brennan couldn't let Booth do something like that and not try and help him in return. "No, I won't. You think it was the Senator?"

Booth sighed knowing she wasn't going to give this one up. "Look, the Senator has had sex with a dozen of these interns and he hasn't killed any of them, our best bet is still the stalker."

Brennan smiled. She had her Booth back. "You want to check him out, we can, I don't, what do you call it, roost him?"

Booth smirked at her attempt at the phrase. "It's 'roust', babe."

Brennan smiled at his whispered 'babe'. "Fine, roust. Well the murderer snatched a Bronze Star from Cleo's neck, so…"

Booth couldn't believe that his wife was now his support system to continue with this case. God, he loved her. "I've got twelve hours before this case is over and I'm off it so, let's go roust."

* * *

The forensic team gave a run through of the scenario they found to be congruent with their findings.

Booth listened to everything the squints said, but when Hodgins asked, "Sound like any conniving, son-of-bitch senators you know?" he couldn't let that go by without them knowing the repercussions. "You expect me to declare war on a United States Senator based on your little holographic crystal ball."

Brennan didn't like that her husband doubted their logic. He never did that before. "It's not magic. It's a logical recreation of events based on evidence."

Booth didn't see the hurt in her eyes when he said, "No more valid than my gut."

Zach stated the fact, "A good hypothesis withstands testing that's what makes it a good hypothesis."

Booth – who couldn't stand this squint in particular – said without thinking, "It's not a hypothesis, you have a dead girl and a United States Senator. This is exactly why squints belong in the lab; you guys don't know anything about the real world." Once he said it though, he regretted it.

Brennan couldn't believe her ears. Glaring at Booth she said, "Come on, we're done here."

With that, Brennan, Zach and Hodgins left the room without another word.

Seeing that he wasn't alone, kept up the charade. "Wow! Touchy," he commented.

Angela turned off the Angelator and said, "You must know about her family. Both parents vanish when she's fifteen? Probably counts as the real world."

Booth was already trying to figure out a way to tell his wife he was sorry. "Yeah. I know the story, read the file, cops never found out anything."

Angela tried to help Booth see what more was there. "Yeah, Brennan figures that if maybe somebody like her had been there…"

However Booth couldn't help to say this, "For someone who hates psychology, she sure has a lot of it."

* * *

Booth knew exactly where to find her. She always had an odd fascination with guns.

"Thought I'd find you here. You know, you being a good shot and doing martial arts, it's all your way of dealing. Who knows better than you how fragile life can be?"

Brennan couldn't help but jab at him. She was, after all, still mad at her husband, "Maybe an Army Ranger sniper who became an FBI homicide investigator?"

Booth smirked, "Ah, you looked me up, huh?" He steps forward and places his hand on the small of her back, "I'm sorry Bones. I wasn't thinking when I said those things. I know how much you've been through." He looked down at the gun and asked, "Do you mind?"

Brennan's heart melted a little at Booth's words. "Be my guest."

Booth brought his hand to her hip and squeezed it gently, "Thank You." Booth picks up the gun and purposely misses.

Brennan, knowing how good of a shot he really is, chuckles and jokes, "Were you any good at being a sniper"

Booth smiled at the fact that this almost argument was now dissipated. "A sniper gets to know a little something about killers. Senator Bethlehem, he's no killer."

Brennan still didn't know how her husband went with his gut on some things said, "Oh, and Oliver Laurier is?"

Booth backed his wife up against the wall and was mere inches from her face when he said, "The way I read Laurier, he's unhinged. That makes him dangerous." He meant this as a warning to her to be careful around Laurier.

Brennan couldn't help but jab one more time, "That'd be your gut telling you that, correct?"

Booth smirked at what she said, "You know, homicides, they're not solved by just scientists. They're solved by guys like me asking a thousand questions a thousand times, catching people telling lies every time. You're great at what you do, Bones, but you don't solve murders alone, cops do as well."

Brennan knew exactly what she needed to say to get her husband off of his butt and do his job. So she challenged him, "Cleo Eller was killed on a cement floor sprinkled with diatomaceous earth. Traces of her blood will still be in that cement. One of us is wrong, maybe both of us. But if Bethlehem wasn't a Senator, you'd be right there in his basement looking for that killing floor. You're afraid of him. Your hypothesis is that squints don't solve murders and cops do, prove it. Be a cop." Smirking, she patted his chest and sashayed away from him. Booth grabs his gun and fires two quick perfect kill shots. He hated it when his wife made so much sense sometimes.

* * *

Booth had gone back to his office. Brennan now stood at the door knocking on it and stepping in clearing her throat. Without looking up Booth states, "They look pretty happy, don't they. Otherwise they wouldn't turn on the camera I guess."

Brennan can see the pain in Booth's eyes and gets right to the point, "Zach said you wanted to see me?" Booth hands Brennan a piece of paper. Brennan opens it and looks at it. "You got a warrant to search Bethlehem's place?"

Booth sighs heavily. This case was getting to him and he didn't like it one bit. "You were right. If Bethlehem wasn't a Senator, I'd be in that basement, looking for that killing floor. But you're wrong, I was never afraid of that guy and I'm not doing this because you're a genius babe, I'm doing this for Cleo. You ready partner?"

Brennan looked at him with her lopsided smile, "Since when are we partners?"

Booth smirks at his wife, "I apologize for the assumption."

~BONES~

A few hours later, the FBI forensics team was at the senator's house. Brennan watched from the side-lines as they brought out a sledgehammer in a plastic bag.

Brennan calls out to Booth as he walks up to her, "At least we got the hammer."

Booth is upset. It isn't enough. "Yeah but that's all we got Bones."

Brennan doesn't believe it. What about the floor? "The cement floor in the basement?"

Booth shakes his head. "Yeah, no blood or diatomaceous earth. We needed a trifecta Bones. Physical evidence, murder weapon, crime scene. Come on let's go home. I'll hand over the case to Cullen tomorrow and this will all be over with."

Brennan looks at her husband. She thinks to herself, He needs to get this guy. So instead of doing what she's wanted to do ever since this morning, she shakes her head, "No, you go on. I still have some things I need to take care of at the lab."

* * *

Zach couldn't believe it, "They won't even arrest him?"

Hodgins was confident though that justice would prevail, "Don't worry, if that's the hammer used on Cleo Eller, he'll get arrested. A toast to getting this bastard."

Brennan just shook her head. "The hammer's not enough. He's gonna get away with it. And maybe Booth is right, maybe outside the lab I'm useless."

Hodgins holds up the little saint book and says cheerfully, "Let's take guidance from the lives of the Saints."

Angela reads who the saint is, "Albertus Magnus, Patron Saint of Scientists."

Zach ponders that and thinks about what he knows about saints, "I thought Magnus was the Patron Saint of fish mongers?"

Hodgins expounds on his friends knowledge. "Two separate entities. Albertus Magnus was a 13th century philosopher, the fish monger saint was a …"

However Brennan starts thinking of what Zach just said and something clicks. She yells, "Fish!" All three of the squints look at Brennan like she's gone mad. Brennan continues, "You said that diatomaceous earth could be used as a filtering agent."

Hodgins nods slowly, "Yeah, for swimming pools, water filters…"

Brennan lets them in on her thought process, "Or tropical fish. Oliver Laurier said that Ken Thompson kept fish." Brennan jumps up and starts to run out of the lab.

Angela – still not fully grasping the big deal – asks, "What's your hurry?"

Brennan turns back to them and explains, "Thompson read the warrant. He knows we're looking for diatomaceous earth. Get in touch with Booth; tell him where I'm going, okay?" Then Brennan starts to run to get to her car.

Angela turns to Hodgins and says, "She didn't actually say where she was going, did she?"

* * *

After yet again a very long night of no sleep due to the fact that Brennan had had to give her statement and had been arrested by her own husband, she stood in front of the funeral for Cleo Eller with the rest of her team.

Angela asks quietly, "Is the FBI going to lay charges against Brennan?"

"She only shot him in the leg. Once," Hodgins stated as he looked at Booth.

Booth hated that he had to arrest his wife. He was actually very proud of how his wife figured everything out. She caught the killer.

He tried to explain, "She didn't give him a warning. She just shot him, with alcohol on her breath." Brennan starts to walk away from the funeral at that.

Goodman tried to reason with Booth, "It was her first shooting, you can't expect it to be perfect right out of the gate."

Zach – again without any forethought of how his words affected people – asked, "How much warning did you give people before you sniped them?"

Booth gave Zach his best glare before jogging up to his wife.

Brennan looked up at Booth to see a smug smile on his face. She couldn't help laughing a little before asking, "What?"

Booth looks down at her still smiling, "Told you it wasn't the Senator."

Brennan just smiled and shook her head. "And I told you who it was, so we're even."

"Except we work on the same cases and you end up on the New York Times Best Sellers list," Booth corrected her. He had seen the paper that morning.

Brennan is shocked at that piece of news. "I didn't know that!" she exclaimed.

Booth smiled proudly at her, "Number Three, with a bullet."

Brennan smiled back at him. "That's good, right? The New York Times with a bullet…"

Booth lightly pushed her with his shoulder, as he said, "It means you're rich, call your accountant."

Brennan just laughed at that. "You know I don't have an accountant."

"Well, we should get one then," Booth said as he smiled at her before winking at her.

Brennan looked up at him expectantly, "Okay, how does that work?"

He just rolled his eyes heavenward. "Ugh, you need to get out of the lab. You know: watch TV, turn on the radio, anything! Pick up the phone and…" However he opted out of finishing that sentence and turned around to watch the Eller's say goodbye to their daughter. With pride in his voice Booth tells his wife, "You know, if it weren't for you, those people would never have known what happened to their daughter. That's got to be worse than the truth."

Brennan smiled sadly. "I know exactly how the Eller's felt about Cleo. With my parents disappearance and nobody knowing what exactly happened to them." Booth discreetly squeezes her hand reassuringly.

Booth smiles at her warmly and says, "I know babe." Then taking in a deep breath he says, "You know, being a sniper I took, a lot of lives. What I'd like to do before I'm done is try and catch at least that many murderers."

Brennan smiled up at her husband as she squeezes his hand right back, "I'd like to help you with that."

Booth smirked at his wife and shrugged his shoulders like he could care less. "Ehhhh…"

Brennan just laughed and lightly smacked his arms. Booth really wanted to show his gratitude for everything Brennan had done for him these past few days. So he whispered in her ear, "Come let's go home. I still have to answer that question of yours." Brennan's eyes beamed brilliantly at the idea of what was to come.

And so begins their wonderfully, secretive, chaotic life together as partners.

* * *

_**Thank you everyone for being so patient. I apologise for not updating sooner. This isn't the finished chapter, but I thought you all deserved a big peek of what I'm doing. Though the style has been changed, this is mostly what the original story was like before I took over the reigns. I don't when I'll be finished, but I ask that you be patient.**_

_**If anyone is interested in reading my One Direction Fan Fiction, I've already uploaded three chapters and am nearly finished with the fourth. I've had a few good comments from non-1D fans even if you're not a fan of the band I would welcome the support. The web address is www. movellas en/ book/ read/ 201207101609049614 (take out the gaps)**_


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